Faced with ageing population, Vietnam seeks to curb falling birthrate

So the communists governing this country since 1976 had a two-child policy and not a one-child policy like China?

(3) Faced with ageing population, Vietnam seeks to curb falling birthrate • FRANCE 24 English - YouTube

Hanoi is building a new futuristic city by tearing down the old one

Bad news! That is what dictatorship communist governments do!

(164) Hanoi is building a new futuristic city where the old one stands - YouTube

Is Myanmar’s Civil War at a Turning Point?

Recommendable!

(160) Is Myanmar’s Civil War at a Turning Point? - YouTube

Inside a Changing Nation | Vietnam

Recommendable!

(484) Inside a Changing Nation | Vietnam: Looking for Home (full documentary) | FRONTLINE/World - YouTube

Lords of the flies: Thailand's edible insect innovators

Nice headline! Sounds so delicious! Bon appetit! Just kidding!

Lords of the flies: Thailand's edible insect innovators - Nikkei Asia "Entrepreneurs are turning six-legged livestock into protein, pet food and probiotics"

Protein meal made from black soldier fly larvae is inspected during quality control ...

South Korea's LetinAR is building optics behind AI glasses

Good news!

"... Over the past few years, Big Tech has been quietly (and not so quietly) placing its bets. 

Meta has been selling AI-enabled Ray-Ban glasses since 2023,

Google is building Android XR, and Apple is expected to enter the market.

Last week, Samsung was reportedly set to unveil its first AI-capable smart glasses, co-designed with Gentle Monster, at a Galaxy Unpacked event in London 

this July. China’s Huawei, Alibaba, Xiaomi, and others are all moving too.

The numbers reflect the momentum. Global AI glasses shipments surged to 8.7 million units in 2025, up more than 300% from the prior year, and analysts project that figure will cross 15 million this year, per Omdia.

Suppliers and component makers of AI-powered smart glasses are also positioning themselves for what comes next. One of the companies, a South Korean startup called LetinAR, has spent the last decade building the optical technology that could make all of this actually wearable. ...

The LG Electronics-backed startup just secured $18.5 million ...

LetinAR doesn’t make the glasses. It makes the part that makes the glasses work. The optical module, the tiny lens component that projects images into your field of vision, is what determines whether a pair of smart glasses feels like a sci-fi headset or something you’d actually wear to work ... 

It has to be light, thin, and power-efficient, while still delivering a sharp, clear image. Getting all of that right in a single component, small enough to fit inside a normal-looking frame, is the central engineering challenge of the entire industry. That’s what LetinAR is building. ...

PinTILT sidesteps that trade-off ... By focusing only on the light that can actually enter the eye and carefully engineering the angle of each tiny element inside the lens, LetinAR claims it can produce a brighter image in a thinner, lighter form factor, using less power. ..."

South Korea's LetinAR is building optics behind AI glasses | TechCrunch

Source

Cambodia unveiled the world’s first statue honoring a landmine-detecting rat

Highly unusual!

"Cambodia unveiled the world’s first statue honoring a landmine-detecting rat, a rodent named Magawa who sniffed out more than 100 landmines during a five-year career before retiring and dying in 2022."

Monday, April 6, 2026 - Join The Flyover

Source

Scientists engineer E. coli to monitor arsenic in rice paddies in Southeast Asia

Good news!

How serious of a problem is this arsenic pollution of rice paddies in this region?

"Cornell scientists have engineered E. coli to act as a sensitive biosensor for monitoring environmental arsenic, a toxic pollutant most notably found in rice paddies in Southeast Asia.

A new study provides a proof of principle for a potentially cheap living sensor that can record even transient arsenic exposure under anaerobic conditions, preserve this information in the genome and allow delayed readout later in the open air of the lab.

The ability to detect and record arsenic exposures under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions has been a challenge for other types of arsenic biosensors. 

At the same time, the mechanism within this sensor has the potential for use in other bacteria species and to detect other toxins. ..."

From the abstract:

"The ability to induce heritable genomic changes in response to environmental cues is valuable for environmental biosensing, for experimentally probing microbial ecology and evolution, and for synthetic biology applications. Site-specific recombinases provide a route to genetic memory via targeted DNA modifications, but their high specificity and efficiency are offset by leaky expression and limited tunability in prokaryotes.

We developed a tightly regulated, titratable Cre recombinase system for Escherichia coli that achieves low recombination rates and minimal basal activity. Implemented on both plasmids and the chromosome, the latter showed superior retention of genetic memory across generations. These features make the system broadly useful for environmental biosensing and other applications. To demonstrate applicability to environmental biosensing, we developed a whole-cell recombination-based biosensor for arsenite, a toxic and ubiquitous pollutant that is primarily mobilized in anoxic environments, such as flooded soils, sediments, and aquifers. However, existing arsenite whole-cell biosensors face limitations in sensitivity and workflow in anaerobic settings.

Our biosensor reliably recorded anoxic arsenite exposure as a stable genetic memory for delayed fluorescence readout in aerobic conditions, with detection sensitivity comparable to conventional wet chemical methods.

By decoupling exposure from measurement, this approach offers a foundation for arsenite biosensing under field-relevant conditions, including redox variability and other physicochemical gradients, without the constraints of anoxic measurement. More broadly, the ability to induce low-rate, heritable genetic changes expands the genetic toolkit for environmentally responsive systems, with applications in environmental monitoring, bioproduction, and bioengineering, as well as experimental studies of microbial ecology, evolution, and host-microbe interactions."

Scientists engineer E. coli to monitor arsenic | Cornell Chronicle

Tunable low-rate genomic recombination with Cre-lox in Escherichia coli: a versatile tool for anoxic environmental biosensing and synthetic biology (open access)

Fig 1 Schematic of the Cre-loxP reporter system in E. coli on a plasmid.

Fig 4 Schematics of arsenite whole-cell biosensors and endpoint fluorescence measurements collected by flow cytometry.

Is Thailand ready to become a super-aged society?

Recommendable! Not only Western countries are facing fast aging societies!

Murphy Oil's discovery in Vietnam could be ASEAN's biggest in 2 decades

Good news!

What ever happened to the so often repeated assertions of Peak Oil?

"... The HSV-2X appraisal well encountered 429 feet of oil across two reservoirs and tested at 6,000 barrels per day of 37° API oil. Murphy has revised its recoverable reserves estimate toward the upper end of the 170-430 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) range previously announced, with additional shallow reservoir sections providing further upside potential. 

"In a predominantly gas-prone region, oil discoveries of this scale are exceptional," said Angus Rodger, head of Asia-Pacific upstream analysis for Wood Mackenzie. "HSV ranks as the third-largest oil discovery in Southeast Asia since 2000, trailing only Indonesia's Banyu Urip and Malaysia's Gumusut. ..."

Murphy Oil's discovery in Vietnam could be ASEAN's biggest in 2 decades - Nikkei Asia "Recoverable resources of the primary reservoir at offshore site are larger than previous estimate"

Murphy Oil confirms major find in Vietnam - potentially the biggest oil discovery in Southeast Asia of the last 20 years "Hai Su Vang appraisal confirms recoverable reserves at upper end of 170-430 mmboe range, offering potential lifeline to Vietnam's declining oil production"

Largest oil discovery in Southeast Asia since 2000

Will the Thai Canal finally be built? How eager is China? Will Japan support it?

I must admit either I forgot or I never heard of this major civil engineering project that could well compete with the Panama Canal or Suez Canal!

"The Thai Canal .. also known as the Kra Canal ... or the Kra Isthmus Canal ..., is any of several proposals for a canal that would connect the Gulf of Thailand with the Andaman Sea across the Kra Isthmus in southern Thailand. Such a canal is suggested to significantly reduce travel times through heavily-navigated trade routes.

The canal would provide an alternative to transit through the Strait of Malacca and shorten transit for shipments of oil to Japan and China by 1,200 km. China refers to it as part of its 21st century maritime Silk Road. Proposals, as of 2015, measure 102 kilometres long, 400 meters wide and 25 meters deep. ...

A canal through the Kra Isthmus, which would shorten shipping times around Asia, was suggested as early as 1677. Thai King Narai asked the French engineer de Lamar to survey the possibility of building a waterway to connect Songkhla with Marid (now Myanmar), but the idea was discarded as impractical with the technology of that time. ..."

Thai Canal - Wikipedia

Credits: Thailands Jahrhundertentscheidung

Source

There is 'no political will' to solve Thai-Cambodian border dispute, analyst says

Recommendable! Cambodia has no air force.

Thailand launches air strikes along Cambodia border as renewed fighting breaks out

Bad news! Hopefully, this will not escalate! Peacemaker President Trump needs to be active again!

Malaysia vs Indonesia: Who Gets to Claim the Durian? with Palki Sharma

Tutti frutti!

Russia sees Southeast Asia as next destination for small nuclear reactors

More signs of a renaissance of civilian nuclear power generation is coming! What about the energy hungry data centers!

"Moscow aims to capture 20% of growing market by 2030"

"... Russia is increasingly involved in Southeast Asia’s nuclear energy market, most recently vis-a-vis the signing of a new memorandum on the development of nuclear energy between Rosatom and Vietnam Electricity. ..." (dated 1/29/2025)

Russia sees Southeast Asia as next destination for small nuclear reactors - Nikkei Asia

Russia Expands Nuclear Energy Influence in Southeast Asia (dated 1/29/2025)

Anwar to Trump: You break rules to give me a ride on the Beast

Very recommendable! President Trump did more than dancing on the airport! Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim gave a very unusual speech full of praise for President Trump! Remarkable!

Indonesia’s hospital ships are powerful tools of diplomacy

Good news!

According to Google search: "The United States currently has two large hospital ships: the USNS Mercy and the USNS Comfort."

"Within Southeast Asia, Indonesia stands out as the only country in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations operating dedicated hospital ships. Its investment is thus particularly striking and highlights its approach to humanitarian readiness and regional diplomacy. ...

Then consider Britain. The Royal Navy is among the most capable globally, with nuclear-powered submarines and two modern aircraft carriers. And still, it has no hospital ship. ...

Indonesia operates three hospital ships despite facing no imminent external threat. On paper, this seems puzzling. 

Hospital ships come with strict obligations under the Geneva Conventions: they must be marked, declared and used solely for medical purposes. These requirements make them costly and politically sensitive, especially in peacetime.

Yet in Indonesia’s case, the explanation lies less in war than in disasters.

The country is incredibly disaster-prone. It has faced earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods and tsunamis. ..."

Indonesia’s hospital ships are powerful tools of diplomacy | The Strategist

Why Myanmar’s Military is Holding an Election

Recommendable!

Vietnam accelerates land building in disputed South China Sea

Recommendable! Countering China!

When parts of Sundaland were dredged up to build an artificial island

Amazing stuff!

"Over the past 2.5 million years, sea levels have waxed and waned around the islands of Southeast Asia, sometimes exposing a sunken landmass—now called Sundaland—and letting animals migrate from mainland Asia onto islands like Borneo and Java. Now, in a series of four papers, researchers have described the first hominin to be uncovered from this now-sunken landscape, as well as other vertebrate remains.

The new discoveries piggyback off of a construction megaproject. In 2014 and 2015, an Indonesian port company dredged about 5 million cubic meters of sand from the sea floor off Java’s northern coast to build an artificial island. Geologist Harold Berghuis, a consultant with the dredging company, suspected the area might contain important fossils. So, he asked the port authorities whether he could survey newly made island.

When he did, fossils were everywhere. In all, Berghuis collected more than 6300 fossils from dozens of vertebrate species—including ancient humans, sharks, rays, panthers, turtles, rhinos, elephants, and Komodo dragons—that are probably between 131,000 and 146,000 years old. To study the fossils, Berghuis decided to go back to school, switching careers from port consultant to paleontologist.

The fossils shed light on how hominins first moved into what is now Indonesia. Close analysis of two Sundaland skull fragments revealed a strong resemblance to H. erectus skulls previously found on Java. We even have an inkling of what these humans ate. Some of the bones bear marks consistent with butchery, including going after bovids’ tongues, and the breaking open of bones to collect marrow—some of the first evidence of its kind found in Southeast Asia."

From the abstract:

"Eastern Asia yielded a rich fossil record of Pleistocene hominins, ranging from Homo erectus and the diminutive island species Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis, to post-erectus grade late archaic Homo (including Denisovans), and finally to anatomically modern humans.

The Sunda Shelf played an important role in the dispersal and evolution of hominin populations. The shelf has been widely exposed during most of the Pleistocene, forming a landmass known as Sundaland.

Today, the area holds the world’s largest shelf sea. Thus far, hominin fossils from submerged Sundaland were not available.

Here we report on the finding of two hominin cranial fragments from the submerged Sunda Shelf, retrieved during a dredging work in the Madura Strait, off the Java coast. The specimens derive from the sandy fill of a late Middle Pleistocene submerged valley of the Solo River and consist of a frontal fragment and a parietal fragment.

Metric and morphological comparisons with Pleistocene skulls from the Asian mainland, Java and Flores point to a relation with the late Homo erectus of Java, in particular with the crania from Sambungmacan.

The Madura Strait hominins were probably part of an MIS6 population that lived along the Solo, which in this period continued eastward over the exposed shelf area of the Madura Strait. Probably, the large perennial rivers of Sundaland offered good living conditions for Homo erectus, in a late Middle Pleistocene climate setting that was relatively dry."

ScienceAdviser

Ancient human ancestor emerges from sunken Southeast Asian landmass (behind paywall)

The late Middle Pleistocene Homo erectus of the Madura Strait, first hominin fossils from submerged Sundaland (open access)

Fig. 1. A: The Sunda Shelf of Southeast Asia, with the Indonesian archipelago. Box indicates the position of map B.

B: Eastern Java, the Madura Strait, the Solo River, Ngandong, Sambungmacan, and other hominin sites. ...

C: The Madura Strait north of Surabaya, with the sand extraction area and the location of the BMS land-reclamation.

Fig. 4. Madura Strait 1 (MS1): Homo erectus frontal fragment with dextral supraorbital torus.